mathsurgery - revision lesson outlines



	revision lesson outlines Edit 0 3 … 0 Tags No tags Notify RSS Backlinks Source Print Export (PDF) Revision lesson outlines At this time of year lots of classes need to be revising for end of year exams, but doing past-paper after past-paper can get dull and may become an inefficient use of learning time. To keep the pace of learning high, it's a good idea to vary the tasks we give to encourage revision. Following a brainstorming session we offer the following list of ideas for revision lessons. Why not add some more? The past-paper grind. in a one-hour lesson, pupils have 40 minutes to do the even (or odd) numbered questions on a past-paper; work alone and in silence in the last 20 minutes of the lesson, pupils mark their own or neighbours' answers, correcting mistakes and annotating improvements involve pupils by: discussing their answers with teacher as scribe coming up to write their answers on the whiteboard or chalkboard showing answers on mini-whiteboards or other feedback tools putting their answers under a web-cam or Visualiser connected to a media projector consider how to choose the pupils to supply answers: maybe use a randomisation tool such as a large polyhedral die with names on or lollypop sticks? advantages: these conditions are as similar (within an hour in the classroom) as possible to the exam situation disadvantages: pupils become distracted and learning loses momentum the consequence of boredom or frustration may be some low-level behaviour issues especially as learners near the limit of capability a longer time between trying a question and discussing its answer can result in poor learning rates Minute per mark walkthrough split a past paper up into questions or other small chunks, allocating time on a one-minute-per-mark basis (or some other appropriate basis) teacher uses a stopwatch on a phone or laptop to set an alarm to indicate that time is up mark the paper a question at a time as you go through involve pupils by: discussing their answers with teacher as scribe coming up to write their answers on the whiteboard or chalkboard using mini-whiteboards to show solutions and methods putting their answers under a web-cam or visualiser connected to a media projector compare similarities and differences in solutions to look for elegance and efficiency consider how to choose the pupils to supply answers advantages: pupils still get to work through the whole past-paper in question-order (eventually) discussions and learning about how to solve a particular question now have a proximity to the time at which they were attempted disadvantages: this method can be very slow: an exam containing 100 marks could take three or more hours to get through, so maybe prioritise certain questions pupils lose the responsibility for managing their own time in an exam situation pupils are forced to answer questions in a particular order and within a fixed time which may be more restrictive than the exam Topic-based past-paper questions. use Exam-Wizard software (or scissors and glue!) to assemble a collection of past-paper questions on a particular topic apply methods 1. or 2. above advantages: allows repetitive practise of certain skills to consolidate and rehearse methods allows a subtle teacher to group questions which have a deeper connection (example: expected number of successes given probablility and number of trials, stratefied sampling, finding angles for a pie-chart - all essentially the same fraction multiplier method) pupils may be more likely to achieve 'flow' when practising a series of related problems that 'evolve' rather than jumping topics can differentiate difficulty to meet the needs of the group, subgroups and individuals disadvantages: a narrow or careless choice of questions can lead to mechanistic practise without understanding can be difficult to give a grade since no grade boundaries defined The Dragon Quiz. this competitive model was introduced to us by the Liverpool University Maths Outreach team, but may have origins elsewhere (citations?) split your class into n teams of m members from experience we'd suggest 4 to 8 teams of three or four learners each, depending on the size of the class it will also work in pairs, but avoid going much above 6 teams unless you have support assistants or similar in class to help mark the work select a series of exam questions to work on - these may all come from a single past-paper or may be topic-based duplicate these one-question-per-page, ideally into stapled packs each of a different-coloured paper assign a colour to each team give each team the first question torn from the top of their coloured pack when they have an answer they consider correct they bring it to the front to be marked if correct, award points and give them the next sheet torn from their coloured block if incorrect they must return to think again - give hints as appropriate points are awarded on a decreasing scale by order of finishing such as 10 points for 1st place, 8 points for 2nd, etc. use a spreadsheet to keep track of team points set a target for points to win or a time-period in which to play advantages: disaffected boys in particular seem to enjoy the competitive element and this activity has seen reluctant learners transformed can control the choice of questions if you wish pace high work is marked promptly and feedback acted upon group-work encourages discussion and peer teaching disadvantages: some groups may be dominated by a single confident learner (who may or may not be correct most of the time!) some learners find the competitive element challenging or embarrassing groups that fall significantly behind may start to give up if the teacher doesn't intervene to give them some help it's really hard work marking that fast! solutions: we've experimented with duplicating each learner in the group a copy of the questions and requiring each learner to return their own copy of the agreed answer - this forces the dominant learner in a group to at least convince the others to write something and no-one can avoid effort if you're short of marking capacity, you could assign particular learners to be markers for a given lesson, perhaps as a 'reward' for a previous task, they'll learn what the mark-scheme requires and how to apply it accurately, so they're still learning if planning time is no object, and you've got the marking capacity to deal with more different answers to mark, you could try setting each group related but not identical questions at each stage - example if question 2 is a 'solve this linear equation' question, give four similar equations of equal difficulty to ensure each learner has to understand the method that is used by the group to solve the question, not simply regurgitate the answer Murder Mysteries another competitive framework to motivate groups of learners to work through exam questions to each exam question, supply a series of multiple-choice solutions related to common misconceptions to each multiple choice answer supply a clue to a murder mystery learners use their clues to determine who, when, where, why, with what and whodunnit from a list of choices advantages: novelty, provided it's not overdone; fun, ditto can explore misconceptions carefully if the questions and wrong answers are well-chosen encourages discussion and problem-solving disadvantages: possibly excessive focus on solving the murder problem and scant attention given to exam practice as with any multiple-choice situation, the danger of guesswork time-consuming to create? Drip-feed (a.k.a. 'do-it-now') identify particular questions that need extra revision and practice consider using formative assessment data from exam-boards (e.g. Edexcel ResultsPlus) or generate your own hitlist from prior tests copy a question or two onto worksheets (with space for solutions) that are ready on pupils' desks as they enter the room - a 'do it now task' if you're worried about the photocpying budget, display it on the whiteboard, project it or write it on a flipchart instead, but make sure it's there right at the start so that the odd minutes that are often wasted are utilised to revise this topic some teachers find this works particularly well if the revision topic is willfully unrelated to the main content of the lesson give a worked solution out at the end of the lesson for pupils to take away and self-mark their work? Speed dating Peer teachers Revision posters The big question Pass the poster Spot the fake Jigsaw grouped question generator What's gone wrong? Revision packs Error trimmer help on how to format text

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